Zombie
a.k.a. Zombie company, Zombie firm
A company that earns just enough to pay interest on its debts but not enough to pay them down or grow.
A zombie company is the walking dead of business. It earns too little to repay its debts and survives by rolling them over at low interest rates. Take away cheap money and it would collapse.
Zombies multiplied in the long era of near-zero rates. Economists worry they hog workers and capital that could be put to better use, and that a jump in rates could push many over the edge at once. The term is also applied to banks kept alive only by government support.
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